With 113 museum blogs now listed in the MuseumBlogs directory we’ve thinking about the next steps for the site. It is in need of a redesign to accomodate the large number of blogs that have been added recently, there were only around 30 when it launched early last summer. Since this is an “unfunded” project, we don’t always the time we’d like to work on it. As part of redesign, a simple tool we’ve been experimenting with is Google Custom Search Engines, known as Google Co-op (Beta, of course).

We’ve created a museum blog co-op that does a pretty good job of searching the 113 blogs listed in the directory. You can try it out right here. (Updated: 2-5-07)

There is also a page for Museum Blogs on Google itself. This co-op doesn’t allow other contributors (although you can always add your site to Museum Blogs). Seems like there’s a lot of potential here for museums and others. If you want to add the code to search Museums Blogs from your own, it’s below.

<!– Google CSE Search Box Begins –></p> <div id=”mbwidget_xyz” style=”background:url(http://www.museumblogs.org/widget/widgetback.gif) no-repeat top center;width:140px;height:126px;padding:0;margin:0″> <div id=”mblogo_xyz” style=”padding: 7px 0 0 5px;”><p><a href=”http://www.museumblogs.org/”><img src=”http://www.museumblogs.org/widget/widgetlogo.gif” border=”none” /></a></div> <div id=”mbsearchbox_xyz”> <form id=”searchbox_003685806325505846693:kjx1pf1zo-e” action=”http://www.google.com/cse” style=”padding:0;margin:0;”> <input name=”q” type=”text” style=”width:120px;font: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;margin:5px 10px 0px 7px;border:1px solid #a4a4a4;”></input> <div style=”font: 9px/10px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;padding:0px 10px 0px 10px;”><p>Google Custom Search</p></div> <input type=”submit” name=”sa” value=”Search” style=”width:50px;font: 9px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;margin:10px;float:right”></input> <input type=”hidden” value=”FORID:1″ name=”cof”></input> <input type=”hidden” value=”003685806325505846693:kjx1pf1zo-e” name=”cx”></input> </form> </div> </div> <p><!– Google CSE Search Box Ends –>

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